


Falls the Shadow

by Eireann



Series: Sanctuary [1]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Gen, Psychological Trauma, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2018-12-30 04:04:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12100338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eireann/pseuds/Eireann
Summary: Prequel to 'Sanctuary'.  Section 31's methods of conditioning their operatives occasionally have consequences - which need to be addressed, for the safety of all concerned...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [delighted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/delighted/gifts).



> Star Trek and all its intellectual property belongs to Paramount / CBS. No infringement intended, no money made.
> 
> This story is rated for some bad language, if this offends you please consider before reading it.

* * *

 

Between the idea  
And the reality  
Between the motion  
And the act  
Falls the Shadow 

(T. S. Eliot, _The Hollow Men)_

**Chapter 1**

With a sigh of relief, Holly lowered herself into the hot bath.

She’d been working hard in the garden all day, and was looking forward to a long, relaxing soak.  Her nose detected with idle pleasure the various scents of the aromatic herbs she’d mixed into a home-made bath-ball and dropped into the water; rose petals bobbed among the bubbles, a small luxury gathered from the roses that had blown in the heat of the afternoon.  The crimson ones offended her at some minor level, she being a Yorkist through and through, but the bush in the very sunniest corner of the kitchen garden was so old that it seemed almost sacrilege to dig it up, and the perfume was so beautiful when she dried the petals to make pot-pourri; she could stretch her tolerance thus far, although the roses that scrambled over the arch at the front gate and the trellis around the front door were properly, respectably, indubitably white.

She’d switched her music player on and left the door open.  The first track had just started, Paillard’s recording of Johann Pachelbel’s _Canon and Gigue in D Major_ , her favourite piece from the wide range of classical music that she loved.  The exquisite sound filled the cottage.

She had just laid her head back against the scrolled end of the high-backed bath when the phone rang.

Perhaps she can be forgiven for muttering a word that was not at all in keeping with the ambiance she had put so much effort into creating.  Fortunately she had not yet picked up the glass of elderflower wine that was scheduled to be the crowning moment of her relaxation, or she might well have flung it at the offending machine that was the robber of her half-hour of hard earned peace.

However, in the line of work she had chosen there was effectively never a day or even an hour when she was officially ‘off duty’.  With a sigh she levered herself out of the water and padded across the rough-hewn slate floor, leaving a dripping trail that mattered not at all.  If she was lucky, it would just be a wrong number anyway (her number was only one digit away from that of the local ice cream parlour), and she could politely supply the correct number, close the conversation and return to her hedonism with a clear conscience.

“Holly!  It’s a pleasure to hear your voice again!”

She was undeniably startled, and just as undeniably pleased.  “Max!”

It was unlikely to be purely a social call.  As one of Starfleet’s top admirals, Maxwell Forrest rarely had time for chit-chat, even with a woman with whom he’d enjoyed a loosely romantic relationship for a few years.  Both of them understood what that relationship was, and accepted it amicably.  As a result, their warm feelings for each other survived long periods when neither remembered the other existed.  He was a good man, and she liked him immensely, but she was far too clear-sighted a realist to imagine that any romantic relationship would ever be more important to him than his career.    

They had mutual friends, and she knew several members of his family.  It wasn’t just a necessary social obligation to spend a few minutes exchanging news; she was genuinely interested; but nevertheless she knew that the demands on his time would mean he would get around to the real reason for his call sooner rather than later.  That suited her just as well as it did him, because then she could get back to her elderflower wine, her hot bath and the long luxurious soak this call had interrupted.

“I’m afraid I have another job for you, Holly,” he said at last, his tone now a little apologetic.

“Of course you have, that’s why you called,” she replied, amused.  “So tell me the details, and I hope they’re interesting.”

She heard his long exhalation.  “You know, I hate doing this to you.”

“You say the same thing every time, Max.  It’s my job, and I enjoy it.  Tell me and be done with it, I’ve got a hot bath going cold.”

He knew what the bath was like, of course.  He’d stayed over more than once.  “You had to mention the bath.”

“So I’m a sadist,” she replied cheerfully.  “Come on.  Spill the beans.  I’ve got elderflower wine too, and you’re spoiling a potentially beautiful friendship.”

“I’ve got machine-brewed coffee and a doughnut that tastes like it was made last month, but don’t waste any time feeling sorry for me.”

“I won’t.”  She walked over, picked up the glass and took an audible swig, swishing it around her mouth before swallowing right up against the receiver.  “You can keep your coffee.”

“You’re right, you are a sadist.”

“But you love me anyway.”

“I’m rapidly revising that delusion.”  He chuckled, but then sighed and sobered.  “I wish there was someone else I could trust with this particular part of the job.”

“You know the quick way to put me out of work.”  _Shut down the damned Section._  

Of course he knew, and of course he couldn’t.  Section 31 had their tentacles firmly dug into Starfleet, and even he as an admiral couldn’t tell exactly where the authority lay that could close them down, or even who was responsible for their continued existence.  They had their uses, and those uses gave them leverage.  By now he was cynically sure that they had a lot of very powerful friends, so that even if anyone ever thought to call them on their often extremely suspect methods, the accusation would be bogged down long before it got anywhere near a court of law.

What you can’t fight you have to learn to deal with, and as a realist that’s what Maxwell had done.  He disliked the fact that the Section existed, but as he couldn’t deny that they _were_ useful, and couldn’t wave a magic wand to make their existence unnecessary, he contented himself with keeping a wary eye on their activities from a distance and doing what he could to curb their influence within the organisation.  And – as he was today – occasionally acting as the enabler for one of the Section’s casualties to receive some kind of remedial treatment for the psychological damage that the life they led invariably inflicted.

It was extremely dangerous work.  She was under no illusions about that.  But each casualty she treated made her more experienced, and as she grew more experienced she felt that she was better able to minimise the danger, both to herself and to the damaged individuals who turned up on her doorstep – usually bitterly resentful of the fact they’d been sent here at all.

That she was infallible, that she would never make a mistake that could cost her dear, she never for a moment believed.  But that wasn’t going to stop her trying.

“He’s just back from an undercover operation,” Maxwell admitted.  “I don’t know the details.  Hell, nobody tells me things, I’m just a damned admiral.  But I’ve been asked to get this guy checked out.  He’s valuable.  And damned dangerous.”

“We’re all damned dangerous in the right circumstances, Max.”  She took a sip of the wine.  “When do I expect him?”

“He’s booked on the redeye from SFO on Tuesday.  You should see him sometime Wednesday evening.”

“Will he be escorted?”

“I wouldn’t want to risk the escort.” His dryly humorous tone almost managed to disguise the fact that he wasn’t joking.

“I’m looking forward to meeting him already.”

“The two of you should get on.  He’s as English as you are.”

“So if he kills me he’ll do it very politely.”

“With impeccable politeness.”

“What a way to go.”  She took another unnecessarily loud swallow of the wine.  “I was going to send you a couple of bottles of this, but perhaps I’ll need it myself.”

“I was going to tell you to look after yourself, but my concern for your safety’s getting smaller by the minute.”

“Enjoy your coffee and doughnut, Max.”  On which vindictive note she ended the call, knowing that he would be grinning ruefully at the other end of the line.

It really was good wine.  She poured herself another glass and walked back to the bath, where she ran in a bit more hot water to bring it back up to piping hot, the way she liked it.  It seemed this wasn’t the only hot water that she’d be up to her neck in that week.

Wincing and squeaking, she lowered herself back in, retrieved her glass and sipped the contents thoughtfully, staring at the square of window where the evening sky was now luminous blue-green.  English, eh?  Serving in Starfleet?  Admittedly the organisation prided itself on its inclusivity, but she was faintly surprised to find a man of ‘impeccable politeness’ being recruited into the ranks of Section 31.

“Perhaps he was too polite to refuse when they asked him,” she murmured, and fell into quakes of giggles.

Nevertheless, the job to come was one which she knew full well would be no joking matter.  The people who got sent to her were beyond the scope of the average range of treatment; it was the mixture of her professional competence and her absolute discretion that made her the ideal candidate for Starfleet to call upon, though she knew that Maxwell still worried about the danger.  Although she didn’t discount this and never had, she had extraordinary compassion for the people she treated.  That, perhaps, was what made her so successful.  Too successful sometimes for the Section’s liking, for now and again her interventions were so far-reaching that they had a detrimental effect on a patient’s continued usefulness.

Maybe it was those occasional successes that made her so determined to go on with her job, in spite of the danger.  For all that most of the time she was simply restoring a machine to functionality – a functionality that could well be described as criminal – there was always the chance that she might effect a real rescue of the man or woman inside the machine.  That had been Max’s reasoning the first time he asked if she would be prepared to make the attempt.

She hadn’t succeeded, that time or for the next few.  Realistically she doubted whether anyone could have; the Section did its work well.  _Too_ well, on occasions.  Every now and then she had caught glimpses of something, some _process_ , associated with certain of their operatives that was beyond anything found in the standard textbooks on obedience conditioning; not enough for her to frame specific ideas, let alone specific charges, but enough to prompt her to watch for the subtle signals when they appeared.

Well.  It seemed that she was set for an interesting couple of weeks; that was usually the time that a new patient would stay with her, though the stay could be extended if it was necessary.  Ideally they would remain ‘as long as it took’, but Section 31 were rarely willing to wait – it appeared that there were a significant number of pies into which their long fingers needed to slip, and they released their hapless agents only when these became so unstable they were as much of a threat to their teams and handlers as they were to the people upon whom they were supposed to be set.

“Here’s to the new kid,” she murmured, lifting her glass slightly. 

Another adventure was about to begin.


	2. Chapter 2

Holly had spent the morning clearing some of the water-hyacinths from her pond to leave space for the less aggressive waterlilies.  She was just carting the gleaming waxen plants to the compost heap when the tail of her eye caught the movement of something small darting across the path in front of her to hide itself under the sprawling mound of a white rock-rose.

She hadn’t got a good look at it, but she’d got enough of an impression of its gait to suspect that it wasn’t a young stoat or a weasel.  It was definitely very small, though, and she wondered whether she’d accidentally disturbed a vixen carrying a tiny cub, startling the mother into dropping it.

Naturally she knew better than to touch any wild animal, transferring an alien scent to its fur that might possibly risk putting off Mom from retrieving it.  Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have a quick look, and she was, in this as in her work, a sucker for creatures in trouble.

So she parked up the wheelbarrow and walked back very quietly to the flower-smothered cistus. Whatever it was, it hadn’t moved; she’d been watching to see if it made a run for it.  Presumably the mound of green leaves, bronzy buds and pristine white flowers with their bright gold centres was felt to be a sufficient refuge.

Slowly and with great care she parted the stems, trying to avoid making any unnecessary sound. 

But instead of seeing the red fur she expected, she saw what she first took to be a snapped-off head from her magnificent ‘Mother’s Choice’ peony nearby. 

It was not a flower, however, though it was much the same size and just as white.  It was a very young kitten that stared up at her with terrified wide eyes and cowered down, clearly doing its best to hide.

“Hello, sweetheart – where have you come from, then?”

She stared around the garden.  She was out here most of the time during the day, and she’d never seen a cat about, though presumably there were feral cats around the farm down the road.  At a guess, one of them had gone fully wild and had a litter somewhere around here – not a development that Holly particularly welcomed, as she liked the wildlife that her garden attracted and she didn’t want a litter of growing cats hunting fledglings and butterflies.

Still, the kitten was far too young to fend for itself.  Hopefully, if it stayed where it was, its mother would come back and collect it.

Resisting the urge to find out whether the white fur was as soft as it looked, Holly quietly let the cistus stems settle back into place and walked away to sit on the bench by the wall, where she would have a good view of that part of the garden.  She could use the rest anyway – she hadn’t even stopped for a drink, and she’d been out here since just gone six; the weather forecast for the evening wasn’t good, and she’d been anxious to get the pond cleared before the promised rain materialised.

The sun was hot on her back.  Across the dale, clouds moved slowly behind Pen Hill and sheep grazed placidly on the lower slopes.  For a while, there was neither sight nor sound of the kitten, but then she heard the unmistakable sound of a tiny, anxious meow.

If Mom was nearby, she’d probably respond to that.  Holly turned her head, watching for the tell-tale movement of a mother cat somewhere among the shrubs.

Nothing.

The squeaking continued at intervals as the sun advanced.  She went indoors and had lunch, and worked for a couple of hours in the garden room, preparing some herbs for drying.  Every now and then she heard the pitiful little noise outside, but she hardened her heart; mother cats can leave their litters for hours at a time when they’re out hunting, and a mother’s care is best for any creature, human or animal. 

Come the evening, however, and there was still no sign of Mom.  Maybe it was just Holly’s soft heart that made her think that the meows were getting feebler, and the intervals between them longer, but after resisting bravely for a while as she prepared vegetables on the kitchen table, she quite abruptly gave up and went back out to the cistus.

The kitten wasn’t underneath it, and for a moment she felt both disappointment and relief.  A minute later, however, she heard a scrabbling sound under the choisya bush nearby, and sure enough, there was the kitten.

“Come here, sweetie.  Come on, I won’t hurt you.  I just want to check on you, and if you’re OK I’ll put you back again.”  Fending off the deeply-incised choisya fronds, she got hold of the kitten, holding it firmly in spite of its struggles.  It was a male, and at an educated guess he was maybe a month old at most.

The day was warm, but the small body was shivering, and felt cold.  The white fur was soft, but as she brushed it gently to and fro she saw quite a number of fleas running for cover.  It seemed that hunger was stronger than fear, for despite his obvious fright the kitten smelled the food she’d just been handling on her fingers, and began licking them.

“I don’t think your mom’s coming back, sweetie.  And you need something done about those damn fleas, don’t you?  We’ll see what we can do.”

She carried the kitten into the shed, where she sorted out the box she used to overwinter her dahlias.  It was stout and high-sided, and it was the work of a moment to fish out an old jumper that she wore when she was working outside in the cooler weather.  That, however, would have to wait, though she put it on a sunny part of the table in the garden room while she carried box and kitten to the sink in the corner.

The kitten was surprisingly co-operative now that he was held in kind, competent hands.  She put him on the drainer while she put an old plastic bowl in the well of the sink and filled it with warm water, and he looked on inquisitively.

“You probably won’t enjoy this very much, sweetie, but those little shits in your fur will enjoy it a lot less.”  She picked up the kitten, stroked him reassuringly for a moment and then gently lowered him into the water.

Adult cats as a rule are not fond of water, but kittens can be surprisingly tolerant of it, and she was surprised by how little this one struggled.  Careful not to get water in his eyes, she wet his fur and then lifted him out and very gently and thoroughly rubbed in a small amount of washing-up liquid.  As soon as the fur was standing in sticky points, she fetched her finest-toothed comb and worked it through, fetching out disgusting numbers of fleas to drown in the soapy water over which she worked.  She’d never done this before, but had once witnessed a friend of hers treating a stray puppy this way as a stop-gap before getting it to proper veterinary care, and even some reduction in the flea population would lessen the very real risk of the kitten developing anaemia from the drain on its body.

When there wasn’t a square centimetre of fur that hadn’t been combed several times, she emptied the bowl, refilled it with clean water and put the kitten back into it, running the comb through the floating fur again just catch any stray fleas that might have survived the previous treatment.  Only a few appeared, and this time the little creature actually seemed to enjoy the experience; he paddled his paws out as though trying to swim, and his ribs vibrated to what was definitely a purr.

“I suppose I should ring the rescue people, shouldn’t I?” she asked resignedly, carrying the wet kitten into the kitchen in search of a warm towel, in which she wrapped him so that just his head showed.  “But sweetie, you picked a heck of a day to turn up.  I should get you to a vet at least, but I can’t leave the cottage.  I’ve got another rescue case turning up some time tonight, and I can’t take the risk they don’t find me here.  I couldn’t guarantee they’d wait around for me.”

“Oh, I think I probably would.”

She turned, to find a stranger leaning against the back door.  His arms were folded, and he was watching her with a smile that got nowhere near his eyes, which were as grey and cold as the North Sea in winter.

“Visitors normally come to the front door,” she said mildly.

“You mean normal visitors come to the front door.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”  She carried the kitten back into the garden room, where she settled the rolled-up towel complete with passenger in the dahlia box.  “My name’s Holly, by the way,” she added lightly.  “I don’t suppose you’ve any experience with feeding kittens?”

“Not one of my major accomplishments, no.”  He strolled forward and inspected the kitten, which meowed at him hopefully.  “Don’t you have enough problems on your hands?”

“I’m never too busy for anyone who needs help.”  Holly had turned away and was rummaging through a cupboard; finally, right at the back, she spotted what she was looking for. “Oh, I knew I had some!”

“Cat food, and you don’t own a cat?” An eyebrow lifted towards the wavy dark hair, while the voice took on a note of faint, well-bred incredulity.

“No.  Rice milk.  No lactose.  Cow’s milk can give cats lactose intolerance.”  She put the carton down on the table and began hunting through one of the drawers in the Welsh dresser.  “And I know I had some of that thingy stuff in here...”

He didn’t offer to help, or ask what she was looking for now.  Instead he began prowling silently around the cottage.  His feet made hardly any sound, and though he looked carefully at the furniture and the ornaments he touched nothing.  He reminded her of a cat himself, put down in strange surroundings.

Eventually she found what she’d been looking for – a small coil of narrow plastic tubing, a leftover from a long-ago foray into keeping tropical fish.  She cut off a short piece, cleaned and sterilised it, poured some of the rice milk into a clean bowl and microwaved it for a second or two to warm it just slightly, then sucked some of it into the tube.  A finger slipped quickly over the top kept it in by vacuum, and then holding the tube full of milk she picked up the towel and kitten together. 

For a moment it seemed that the unfamiliarity of the whole substitution thing was too great.  But hunger is the best appetiser, and as soon as the kitten got the idea he launched himself into it with abandon, Holly gently releasing the pressure on the top of the tube by degrees to let the milk flow down it and into his mouth.

She had to refill the tube about ten times before the suckling became less frantic and the amber eyes began to droop.  In the meantime, her other waif had disappeared into the hall and was doubtless inspecting the other rooms.

“Don’t think you’re going to stay here indefinitely,” she told the kitten sternly.  “This is strictly a temporary measure.  Tomorrow I contact the RSPCA or someone, and you go to a good home.”

He yawned widely, displaying a perfect little row of white milk-teeth.  The ones at the back were missing, probably not through the gums yet.  Then, unmistakably, he started to purr.

“And don’t think you’ll get around me with underhand tactics, either, mister.  I’ve met your sort before.” 

It was undoubtedly a mistake to sit down in the comfy armchair by the fire, unwrap him from the now damp towelling and settle him into the crook of her arm, but she did it anyway; finishing the vegetables could wait awhile.  He kneaded her arm, purred even more loudly for a second or two, and then fell asleep almost between one breath and the next.

The sound of a shower running told her that her visitor was in the bathroom.  If he’d come all the way from San Francisco he probably needed to freshen up.

There was a plain black holdall by the back door.  She would have picked it up and carried it into the guest bedroom, but she didn’t want to disturb the kitten.

“What shall we call you, eh?”  Very gently, she stroked between the little furry ears, which were somewhat large in proportion to his skull.  “I can’t just call you ‘Mr. Moggy’, now can I?”

She cast her eyes about in search of inspiration.  On the wall in front of her there was a striking picture of King Richard III about to ride into the battle that would cost him his life.

“No, sweetie, ‘Richard’ is far too long for a little scrap like you.  I think I’ll just call you Dickon – but don’t read too much into it,” she added severely.  “This is still a strictly temporary arrangement, right?”

Unsurprisingly, the kitten made no response.  Already his fur was beginning to dry to a soft, clean white cloud.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a quiet evening.  Mostly.

She took Dickon to the local vet’s when the surgery opened, and had him treated for fleas and worms.  The kitten appeared to be fairly healthy, if a little underweight, and the vet was of the opinion that he was indeed about four weeks old.

Rehoming, however, was apparently likely to be problematic.

“He’s a cute little lad, so he might get lucky if they take him,” the vet said doubtfully, peering into the pointed ears.  “But it’s July, and the rehoming centres already have more kittens than they know what to do with.  And not having the mother, it’s a full time job for someone to keep a kitten fed and looked after ... they mostly don’t have the staff.  But you could always try.”  He handed over a leaflet with contact details. “Your other option is just to put him back out in the garden.  You never know, Mom might still turn up some time overnight.”

 _Yes, and so might a fox._ With Dickon’s white coat, he’d be a magnet for trouble.  A vixen with cubs to feed would have no trouble tracking down the cries of a hungry kitten....

Doubtless the vet knew that as well as she did, but naturally the farming community was unsentimental about animals.  It was true that the mother cat might indeed turn up to reclaim her offspring (apparently the smell of human contact wouldn’t normally prevent that with a cat), and if that happened it would be the best outcome; Dickon would have the optimum chance for survival with his fleas and worms treated at this young age, plus the vitamin injection the vet also administered in view of his low body weight.

Pets weren’t in her schedule.  She folded the leaflet and put it into her pocket.

Dickon purred like a very small motor as she picked him up and carried him out to the flitter, pausing to purchase some kitten food and milk and a couple of proper feeding bottles on the way; she could pass them onto the rehoming centre when she handed him over.  The dahlia box was in the foot-well of the passenger seat, and she put him into it.  On the way here she’d covered it with a blanket to keep him calm and contained, but this time she left just a corner uncovered so that he could see out.  If he showed any sign of distress she could pull it all the way across in a moment.

She started the engine and glanced down at him.  The motor was all but silent, but this was all a strange new environment to him.  The visit to the vet, where he’d been poked and prodded and pricked with a needle, couldn’t have been all that reassuring either.

He folded his front paws under his chest and peered up at her, still purring.

“Don’t go there,” she muttered, but she was smiling as she turned the wheel to pull away from the kerb.  He was a cute little thing. 

She’d miss him when he went.

*               *               *

The cottage hadn’t been burned down when she got back.  Not that she’d seriously thought it might be, because setting fire to your hostess’s house is considered distinctly poor form among the best families, and her impeccably polite guest would undoubtedly be aware of the social conventions.

When she first walked in through the gate, she stopped in surprise.  What looked like a sizeable chunk of a dead tree had been stripped of its branches, dragged in and deposited at the side of the cottage.  She had a woodshed there, and it seemed that someone had had the idea that it ought to be replenished.

Well, it wasn’t as if she didn’t like the idea.  During the year she normally went out foraging in the wood for fallen branches, especially after a storm, to keep herself supplied with fuel. Come the winter, however, it was important for her to have enough to keep the cottage warm for possibly weeks at a time; up here the snow sometimes drifted so deep that you couldn’t get near the trees.

As she walked around towards it, the man who’d been responsible for its arrival straightened up suddenly, raising the chainsaw in his hands to a ‘ready’ posture.  For all that the saw must have done most of the work in preparing the trunk for transport, he must have expended some real effort in getting it here.  He was shirtless, and his bare torso gleamed with sweat.

At this point it occurred to her that he was quite good-looking.  Of course, good looks came in useful in his line of work, but it wasn’t a given.  And few of those she’d treated over the past few years had exuded this sense of ... she didn’t really like the term ‘animality’, it was overused, but it was difficult to prevent it springing to mind as she stared into his thin, rather hostile face with its high cheekbones and hard mouth.  She guessed he was in his early- to mid-twenties, but lines of bitterness and pain were dug into his features, making him look older.

“That’s very kind of you,” she remarked mildly, nodding towards the tree.  “Dinner will be ready in about an hour.”

“You didn’t get rid of the moggy, then.” He glanced at the box, over whose edge Dickon was now happily peering.

“Not today.  I’ll ring around tomorrow.  Sorry, sweetie.”  She dropped a regretful kiss on the kitten’s head.

For the first time the faintest shadow of something that might have been a genuine smile flickered across his face.  Holly thought to herself that the real one might make him look seriously attractive.

He lowered the chainsaw and placed it carefully before pressing the switch to start it up again; evidently he was now starting to cut the trunk into smaller sections to be cut up later.  It occurred to her that it might have been more sensible of him to do this where he’d found it rather than dragging the whole thing here, but if it occurred to her then it would undoubtedly have occurred to him too.  At a guess he’d chosen instead to work off some excess angst with the exertion.

As she walked past him, she saw faint white marks in the lightly tanned skin of his arms.  They were old and beginning to fade, but she knew the shape of teeth-marks when she saw them.

She carried Dickon into the kitchen, speaking soothingly to him when he cowered down, startled by the sound of the chainsaw motor starting.  With some irony she wondered what Maxwell would have found to say about it if he’d been able to see her now – alone and unarmed, with a probably vicious killer outside the back door armed with a running chainsaw.

Still, even vicious killers have to eat; so she got on with preparing dinner, leaving Dickon to explore the kitchen.  He was intensely curious, though every now and then the note of the chainsaw at work would set him scampering back to the sanctuary of his basket.  She dropped kitchen towel on the first of the inevitable puddles, wiped the place clean with disinfectant and put the soiled towelling by the back door, with a few more pieces underneath it.  The smell of it there would encourage him to use the place next time he needed to pee, and she could put up with it for one night.  As he wasn’t staying, she’d thought the purchase of a litter tray an unnecessary extravagance.

As soon as the chicken and vegetable casserole was in the oven, she got out the kitten milk and tinned food.  She mixed together a bit of both on a saucer and put cat and saucer on to the worn wooden surface of the kitchen table; at a guess, the kitten hadn’t had any solid food yet and might need a bit of coaxing before he got the idea.  This would be considerably easier with her sitting down on one of the hard chairs beside it than kneeling on the floor, and she could wipe down the table top with disinfectant afterwards.

He was definitely ready for his next feed, but although his eyes went round with interest and a positive fusillade of purrs vibrated his little body as he nosed the contents of the saucer, he didn’t quite seem to know what to do about it.

“Come on, sweetie.  Just try.  The vet said you’re old enough for a bit of solid food.”  Holly dipped her finger in it and lifted it to his nose; he licked it enthusiastically and tried to suckle.

Behind her, there was the sound of the cutlery drawer opening.  She deliberately blanked out the idea of the knives in there.  If her visitor wanted one, the one she’d used to carve the chicken was sitting in the drainer, its hilt ready to hand.

“Try with this.” He leaned across her, dipping the handle of a teaspoon into the mush.  “I’ll get his mouth open and you pop it in.  He’ll get the idea fast enough.”

His hands were large, but they were very deft.  He handled the kitten gently, not scaring him, but pressing both thumbs firmly into the sides of the jaw.

The little mouth opened; the pressure left no choice.  Straight away, with the utmost care, Holly pushed the tip of the teaspoon handle in, depositing a tiny amount of the mush behind the teeth before withdrawing the spoon at once.

The squeak of protest died as if by magic.  If it had been felinely possible, the purr got even louder and the eyes even wider as he found the wonderful taste in his mouth.

After that, it was evidently imperative that more of it should be ingested.  Eating was suddenly something he wanted to do, and he almost dived nose-first into the saucer in his haste to set about it.

“I think he’s got the idea,” said the dry voice above her.  “Good luck with getting him clean afterwards.”

“It’s nice to see him enjoying his food.”  She watched, smiling.

“So I know what to do to please my hostess, then.  As soon as you give me dinner I dive into it head-first, and my welcome is assured.”

“Your welcome will always be assured in this house.”  For the first time she looked up and met his eyes fully.  He held her gaze for a couple of seconds and then glanced away, a faint sneer of self-derision twisting his mouth.

“You won’t need to chop any wood for a while,” he remarked, nodding in the direction of the woodshed. 

“Thank you.  It’s not one of my favourite jobs, but needs must.”

“My motto exactly.” Now the sneer had bitterness behind it.  “Well, how long do I have before dinner?  I’d prefer to get cleaned up.”

“Bit of a wasted effort if you’re planning to dive head-first into the plate, isn’t it?  You might as well wait and get cleaned up afterwards.”

“Oh no, I think I’ll make the attempt to remember I was _raised_ a gentleman.  At least as regards proper manners at the table.”  With which he walked away towards the hall and the bathroom beyond.

She raised eyebrows at Dickon, who by this time had both of his front feet in the saucer.  She’d had a good look at the wrist of the hand that had held him, and it too was scarred.  Experience had taught her to recognise the tiny indentations where sutures had healed.  He’d had surgery, and the scars weren’t as old as the bite marks.

“We’d better watch our step with this one, sweetie,” she said quietly.  “I’m glad I’ve got you here.  I can always threaten to set you on him if he gets stroppy.”


	4. Chapter 4

The short time till dinner passed off without event.

After he’d showered, her guest returned to the lounge, picked out a book from her small library (Nicholas Nickleby, she noted), sat on the couch and began to read it. When she asked him politely if he’d mind setting the table, he did so without protest, setting out the cutlery with military precision.

Although she made no effort to force conversation, the meal was not eaten in complete silence; her companion occasionally made what might be termed polite small-talk, and it was indeed obvious that he had been raised with good manners. Although he was undoubtedly famished, he did not touch his cutlery before she had picked up hers, and he poured wine into her glass before half-filling his own.

“Yours?” he queried, smelling the liquid carefully.

“Mine.” She took an easy sip. “Made to my special recipe.”

He went on smelling it. Across the rim he watched her, his grey eyes intent.

“The ingredients of which I grow myself, in the garden outside, and which do not include ear of bat or eye of newt, or any artificial drug created in a laboratory,” she added calmly.

For a moment longer he held her gaze with his own. Then he took a mouthful of the wine and swallowed it.

“I was telling the truth, you know.”

“I know.” He took a slice of French bread from the basket in the middle of the table and buttered it. “How long have you lived here?”

Holly considered. “About eight years, give or take a few months.”

His next words were delivered without the slightest change of tone as he raised his glass to his lips again. “You do know I could make you bend over and fuck you like a bunny.”

“No, really?” She raised her eyebrows in polite surprise. “Male rabbits only take up to twenty seconds to ejaculate. I’d have thought you’d have taken at least twice that.”

She watched in malicious pleasure as he spat the mouthful of wine all over his dinner. He grabbed up his napkin and held it to his mouth as he spluttered helplessly, but when he finally emerged from behind it he was actually laughing. 

It took years off him.

“Brava!” he said. “And since I’m not going to refuse food I’ve spoiled by acting like a prick, I suggest we eat.”

“Feel free,” she replied, munching a baby carrot. She’d already started on hers.

The rest of the meal passed in a silence that was surprisingly companionable. He didn’t seem to find that the accidental garnish with bramble wine seriously interfered with the flavour of the food, but ate it ravenously. It possibly wasn’t strictly polite to clean the bowl with the last of the slices of bread afterwards, but having watched her do it he presumably felt this was a nicety with which he could safely dispense.

“That,” he said, sitting back in his chair, “was a meal worthy of my aunt.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Holly glanced at the engraved brass face of the clock. Just gone eight. “Dessert at half past. Home-made rice pudding and stewed plums.”

“I think I could fall in love with you.”

“They do say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

“Ah, but then informed rumour has it I no longer have a heart.” His face was bitter again.

“Then I’d refer to it rather as ‘misinformed rumour’.”

He set down his empty glass and scrutinised her. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“I know you’re here because you need to be. What else do I need to know?”

A flash of anger, quickly controlled. “I think that was a decision I should have made, don’t you?”

“If you’d been in a fit state to make it, you wouldn’t have needed to come here.”

Dickon chose that moment to wake up (he’d been fast asleep in his box) and inform the world in general that he wanted dinner again. Plainly having decided who was responsible for providing it, he tried to climb out of the box, lost his balance and fell flat on his little pink nose. This, however, daunted him not at all. He picked himself up, hurried over to the table and put both of his forefeet on Holly’s leg, mewing loudly.

Holly found him so cute she couldn’t help picking him up and stroking him. “You’re a hungry little boy, aren’t you, sweetie?” she said, laughing. “And you’ve already worked out who makes the meals around here, haven’t you? You’re a clever little boy as well!”

Her companion folded his arms and surveyed them both ironically. “And you still think you’re going to give him away.”

“I know I’m giving him away. He may be a little cutie – yes, you are, aren’t you? – but he’s a cat and I don’t need a pet. And he needs someone who’ll love him. Just like everyone does.”

She firmly ignored the sardonic grunt which greeted that pointed observation. 

To his obvious surprise, she got up from the table and dropped the kitten onto his chest. “Here. You give him some love while I’m getting him some dinner. He doesn’t care who you work for.”

There had been those she’d treated to whom she wouldn’t have entrusted anything so small and vulnerable, but she relied hugely on her instincts. And though for a moment he sat stiffly, staring down at the small creature which reached up and began nosing the underside of his chin, a hand slowly withdrew from its sheltering elbow and began awkwardly petting. The hand was so large by comparison that Dickon fairly disappeared beneath it, but as she glanced back from preparing the next saucer of mush she saw that the hard, set expression on his face had softened ever so slightly. The small motor of kitten-purr filled the quiet room.

“Here you go, sweetie.” She put down the saucer on the floor just along the wall from the heap of kitchen towel by the back door. Eating would probably stimulate the kitten’s body to evacuate, and it was prudent to put him where he could smell the appropriate place to do so. Earlier on she’d fetched a plant-pot cup out of the garden room, filled it with water and set it just beside where she now set down the saucer; he could drink afterwards if he needed to, because the vet had said it was important for him to have constant access to fresh water.

Getting down even from the height of a seated human would have been difficult and potentially dangerous for a kitten. She would have picked him up and taken him to the saucer, but her guest rose and carried him there himself, setting him down gently with a final awkward stroke. “Wrap your face around that, sunshine.”

Dickon needed no adjuration. Once again he pitched himself into the saucer, his absurd little flag of a tail fairly trembling with joy.

“That’s one thing you can say about a cat – they take their pleasures seriously.” Holly smiled as she collected the plates.

“I must have been a cat in a previous life, then.” He leaned back and appraised her body. “You do know you have the most delectable bum.”

“Don’t ogle what you can’t afford.”

“If it’s available let’s discuss the price.”

“I never put a price on people. Even people who put a price on themselves.” After she’d put the plates into the washing-up bowl (even now she refused to modernise the cottage with a dishwasher, feeling it would be too technological, not to mention wasteful of the water that was piped from the nearby well) she turned around and surveyed him in her turn. “Least of all the people who regard themselves as valueless.”

“Oh, I’m not valueless by any means.” His eyes glittered. “I have it on the best authority that I’m worth a small fortune. They had to pay very handsomely for this particular piece of merchandise.”

“Sweetie, I get the feeling you were the one who ended up paying the most.”

“Don’t waste your bloody sympathy on me!” His chair went back with a squeal. “I’m good at what I do. I never wanted to stop, nobody bloody asked me if I wanted a check-up from the neck up. And I don’t fucking need some shrink poking around between my ears and writing a paper on me. If you think I’m going to be your bloody lab rat you can think something else, I had enough of–” He caught himself back into control.

“Just so we’re clear,” he said coldly.

“Crystal.” She held his gaze. “Now, I’d appreciate it if you’d do the washing up.”

There was no doubt about it: between incredulity and fury, for a moment he looked literally murderous. But fortunately, both were ousted by a bubble of angry laughter that forced its way up through his chest. “Well, I’ve been asked to do worse things I suppose.”

“I’m sure.” 

While he worked, she watched Dickon eat. When the saucer was cleared, the kitten wandered around for a few seconds and then squatted. She’d been ready for this, whisked him up and set him down on the kitchen towelling, where he obligingly evacuated. “There’s a clever little boy!” she exclaimed, rubbing him under the ears.

“I hope I get the same amount of appreciation next time I piss in the loo,” came a snarky remark from the direction of the sink.

“If it means that much to you, sweetie, of course I will.”

“Oh, I’ll even let you aim it if you like.”

“If that’s what it takes to ensure you don’t wet on the floor like two-year old, it won’t worry me in the least.”

That shut him up. 

Having cleaned up the little mess and put down fresh paper towels, she picked Dickon up and carried him back to her armchair, where she sat down with him on her lap and stroked him – an activity he thoroughly enjoyed, to go by the volume of purrs. She was aware throughout of being the occasional object of assessing glances from her companion; she still had no idea what his name was, but that would be his decision to tell her, if and when he chose to do so.

When the washing up was done, and the crockery left to drain, he walked into the garden room. She heard him rooting through various drawers of the workbench there, and after a couple of moments’ silence he emerged with a small, concertina-folded piece of paper tied around the middle with a length of string. The other end of this trailed from his fingers.

He set the paper down beside Holly’s foot and tugged on the string gently, making the paper rustle on the carpet. Immediately the kitten’s ears twitched and he looked around eagerly.

“Go play, sweetie!” She set Dickon down, and as the paper rustled temptingly away he waggled his little bottom and pounced, only for the lure to whisk away, leading him on across the hearthrug.

She laughed at his antics. She couldn’t help it; he looked so adorable. Even the man at the other end of the string, skilfully pulling it just enough to keep the ‘butterfly’ out of the kitten’s reach while making it irresistibly tempting, wore a small smile as Dickon went on waggling and pouncing, sometimes just managing to set a paw on the beckoning paper before it whisked away.

The kitchen timer went off, and she went to the Aga. The rice pudding was done to perfection, and she gave the stewed plums a last stir before setting out the dessert bowls. Then she filled these up almost to the brim before depositing a couple of plums in each, spooning just a little honey on to them to finish off.

As she set them down on the table, she looked across at the scene on the hearthrug. The man there looked very far from a Section 31 operative in that moment, sitting cross-legged and smiling as the kitten chased madly past his knees after the paper butterfly.

But that was what he was, she reminded herself. Quite probably if his handler ordered it he’d pick Dickon up in one hand and snuff him out like a candle. There was little doubt that he’d do the same to her too, if ordered; and she knew that sometimes Max worried that his protection wouldn’t be enough if the Section got pissed off with her too-successful treatments of their damaged goods. Still, she didn’t know how other to do her job than relying on her own instincts. It had got her thus far. She couldn’t stop trusting it now.

“When you’re ready,” she said mildly, sitting down to her own dessert.

At once he pulled up the butterfly and pocketed it, leaving Dickon to peer about indignantly for where his playmate had gone. He rose to his feet with one fluid motion and strolled to the table, where he sat and ate the plums and rice silently and at speed. She’d already noted that he wasn’t carrying an ounce of spare fat; for all that he apparently had the appetite of a starving wolf, none of the food went to his waistline. At a guess he worked out daily, driving a high metabolism that burned off any spare calories he consumed.

As soon as both of them had eaten, he picked up the dishes and spoons and washed them up as well. While he did so, she cleared the table.

With the rest of the evening before them, she announced her intention of having a shower. He sat down in the armchair, lifted Dickon up and settled him down on his lap, and picked up Nicholas Nickleby again.

He appeared immersed enough, but something told her not to take the situation at face value. And sure enough, she’d hardly stepped into the shower cubicle before she realised that he was in the room with her, looking through the clear Perspex panel.

She was naturally naked, but although he was standing less than a metre away and would undoubtedly have been able to see whatever he chose to before she became aware of his presence, he was gazing steadily at her eyes. 

She stopped applying the gel, but made no move to cover herself modestly. Various things she could have said to turn the heat and very real potential danger of the moment flashed through her head, but she simply blew him a kiss, turned her bottom and waggled it at him. If he admired it so much, he could have a bird’s eye view of it.

There was a snort of laughter from outside the cubicle, and when she looked around again, the bathroom was empty.


	5. Chapter 5

They said their good-nights peaceably enough a few minutes before midnight.

The last drink of the day had been a warmed herbal infusion of her own concoction.  Seeing her companion once again sniffing warily at the contents of his glass, Holly had matter-of-factly listed its ingredients: almonds, cinnamon, apple pieces and hibiscus flowers. "And mistletoe, I nearly forgot that one,” she added cheerfully.

He’d been about to take a sip, but at that he paused abruptly.  “You are referring to the mistletoe _Viscum album_ , which contains a number of viscotoxins that produce symptoms varying from drowsiness to cardiovascular damage.”

“The very same.  They keep it in the back room of the health shop in the village, for special customers only.  Along with dried deadly nightshade berries and powdered foxglove, hemlock and monkshood.  Not to mention a stock of arum lilies, though those are seasonal of course.  Didn’t you notice the death-cap mushrooms in the casserole?” 

Disregarding his suspicious stare, she took a mouthful.  It was delicious.  Mistletoe, of course, was only present in a miniscule amount (fully aware of its potential toxicity, she bought it as a powder from a health firm), and would have no effect on him other than to possibly relax him slightly; nevertheless, it featured in her formidable arsenal of herbal treatments, and he would have to learn to trust her.

He drank it a sip at a time, frowning, but he drank it. 

Dickon had just had another meal and a small bottle of kitten-milk, followed by another quarter-hour of play, and then fallen deeply asleep on Holly’s lap.  He didn’t even stir as she now put him gently into his box.

With any luck he’d sleep for a few hours.  She was resigned to being summoned for feeding duties sometime in the small hours, possibly more than once; fortunately she slept only lightly as a rule, and with the intervening doors left open she’d most likely hear him as soon as he began to mew.

That leaving her door open in the circumstances was a risk, she was aware.  But then the honest truth was that if her guest was determined to get into her bedroom, a simple mortise lock wasn’t going to stop him – it might even present itself as a challenge, which he’d be tempted to overcome just to prove he could.  Start off that train of ideas and it could quickly pick up speed, so she preferred on the whole to derail it before it started.

Neither of them had alluded to his unauthorised appearance during her shower.  His attitude towards her afterwards hadn’t changed in the least, leaving her undecided whether he’d been simply curious about her body, testing her reactions, or pushing the boundaries – or perhaps a bit of all three.

She was tired enough to fall asleep almost at once, risk notwithstanding.  The cottage was quiet, and nothing disturbed the silence except the occasional bark of a dog from the farm across the dale.

She couldn’t have said what woke her, though she had one foot out of bed before she even knew she’d moved.  For sure there had been no sound; a Section 31 operative would never have betrayed his movements with noise, and there wasn’t a peep from the box beside the Aga.

Her eyes swept the room.  There was no-one in it.  And yet she was still convinced that something was going on.

He had already examined the cottage.  On her return from the vet she had known that he’d carried out a swift but extremely thorough search, undoubtedly hacking into her computer as well.  Not that he’d find anything; she was far too wise in the ways of her ‘patients’ to commit anything to any form of electronic memory, and if he found anything fascinating in her library of e-books or her e-mail correspondence with JJ, she could only conclude that he was exceptionally easy to entertain.

On bare, silent feet she left the room.  The guest bedroom was on the other side of the bathroom, and the doors of both were ajar, showing them empty.

He might have ‘done a runner’, defying his orders, but she thought it unlikely.  Although she had little evidence on which to base her suspicions, she was becoming more and more convinced that he was a victim of that Section ‘super-conditioning’, and therefore however much he might resent his sojourn here, he wouldn’t break its terms by running away.  He might well refuse to co-operate, but whoever had sent him here had undoubtedly known that was more than a possibility.  From their point of view he was a safe that she had the job of cracking, and his lack of co-operation was her problem, not theirs.

The kitchen was also empty.  So was the lounge.  She stood in the hall doorway, considering her options.

He could simply have gone out for a walk.  However tired he might have been after his journey here from San Francisco, insomnia was a common misery of the people sent here for treatment, especially at first.  One or two had been literally unable to sleep in the hours of darkness.  They needed to be able to see their surroundings perfectly when they woke up.

If he had, that wasn’t necessarily a problem.  Although he didn’t know the area, there were no particular dangers lying in wait.  A few miles away there might have been an issue with him wandering over a crag in the dark (particularly if he was sleepwalking), but the land around here was gentle.  Apart from the risk of getting head-butted by Jones’s goat if he crossed the wrong field, she couldn’t think of anything much that was likely to befall him.  It wasn’t as though he were some green teenager unused to looking out for the unexpected.

Logic dictated that whatever he was doing, she hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of finding him.  So the logical course of action was for her to go back to bed and snatch however many more minutes would pass before Dickon decided it was mealtime again.  She hadn’t checked her bedside clock, but guessed that the time was somewhere between one and two.

This was something she’d done on any number of occasions.  Her patients weren’t prisoners, but were free to come and go as they chose.  Usually they chose to stay.  Maybe because they had the option not to.

Tonight, however....

She walked quietly to the French windows.  Beyond them the ancient flagstones of the patio were pale in the moonlight.  Patches of white flowers in between the stones showed where Erigeron had joyously self-seeded, and in the low wall bordering it, clumps of white Erinus shone luminous in the reflected glow.

Beyond that again, the lawn, a handkerchief of green with a border where all things scented and white spread their leaves and flowered.  At each corner of it stood a bush of the white York rose (of course), and though the white lilac and the pearl bush were long past their flowering season, there were still spires of white foxgloves and mounds of spirea with Turk’s-cap lilies swaying among them; butterflies swooned every year over the fat snowy blooms of a buddleia by the gate, a huge fuchsia bush by the back door dripped white beauty all late summer, and almost all of one wall was given over to the magnificent spread of a _Viburnum burkwoodii_ bush whose scent in the evening when it flowered was one of the highlights of her gardening year.  Even in January, clouds of snowdrops at the front of every flowerbed played the overture to the summer’s superabundant theme.

The lawn itself was void of ornament.  Occasionally, sitting outside on the patio as the warm summer evenings faded into night, she saw hedgehogs crossing it, and once a badger had trundled briefly into view.  Five years ago she’d seen fox cubs playing there late one night, but though she’d watched for several nights after that she hadn’t seen them again.

Now, however, it was not empty.  There was someone lying there.

She hesitated.  If he’d gone out there on purpose, he undoubtedly wanted to be alone.  It wasn’t as if the night was cold, and if he’d needed help, he could have called her.  For all that he was quite softly spoken, she had no doubt that he could have made himself heard if he’d wanted to.

Still – the Section had enemies, there could be no doubt of that.  And there was no saying that this remote corner of Yorkshire was sufficiently remote to be beyond the reach of someone who wished him harm, possibly in revenge for any one of the things he’d done at the behest of his superiors....

She turned the key in the lock, and opened just one of the doors.  Although she didn’t put anything on her feet, she made no effort to keep her footfalls on the paving stones soundless.  She wasn’t trying to sneak up on him.

Funny, she’d thought he’d been wearing dark–

_Ah._

A small patch of brighter pallor detached itself from the pale curve of his body and pranced after a moth. He leaned up and, using his mouth, gently picked Dickon up and brought him back into shelter between his arms, where he licked him comfortingly.  The sound of the kitten’s purr was loud in the velvet silence.

Holly stood quite still.  There was no doubt in her mind that the man in front of her was perfectly well aware that she was there.  An unerring instinct told her that success or failure hung on what she did now.

The moon was standing over Pen Hill, nearly at the full.  The face on it smiled approvingly as she slowly shed her nightdress and let it fall.

He was still nuzzling Dickon, but he watched her come across the lawn towards him.

Without words she lay down on the grass beside him.  She adopted the same pose he had done, stretched out on her side, and did not move as he rose on to all fours and began smelling her slowly and carefully, all over.

Though she was fully aware of the magnitude of the risk she had taken, she kept her breathing slow and quiet, and deliberately did not meet his gaze.  Her intention was to meet him on his terms, presenting neither a threat nor – other than her state itself implied – an invitation.

Somewhere up on the shoulder of the hill, a vixen screeched.  Presently an owl called querulously from the beech trees by the crossroads, and another answered it – so far distant that she thought it must be on the other side of the Ure.

Softly, almost shyly, he licked the side of her mouth.  She turned her head just enough to lightly lick his nose.  He was braced across her now, one arm planted just in front of her breasts, and she could feel the warmth of his body.

Sex, here and now, would be... She felt the tug of desire, the heat pooling in her groin.  The grass was cool against her skin; the warm night air caressed her.  His body was hard, masculine.  No, it would not be rape.  But although she was in no doubt that if she offered herself he would take her readily, that would not be what he needed from her the most.

Dickon was still chasing the moth.  With a low, exasperated growl, and still using his mouth, her companion picked up the kitten by the scruff and carried him indoors, never rising from all fours.  She followed him in, ignoring the slight discomforts of this unorthodox method of travel as she crossed the paving.

He didn’t head for the box by the Aga.  Instead he went into his bedroom, where he dropped his small passenger and used his teeth to drag the quilt off the bed onto the floor, where he lay down on it and retrieved Dickon in the same somewhat unorthodox way.  Then he stared up at Holly.

Well.  It was a warm night, but even in the warmest of nights it’s unusual to sleep all night without feeling any need for a covering.  She went to the cupboard, where she pawed out a bedspread that she usually draped over the bed to keep it clean when she had no guests.  Using her teeth, she dragged it to the nest and the two of them pulled it into position.

There was a cushion on the nearby chair.  She pulled it down and nuzzled it into place; he might have no need of a pillow, but she wasn’t going to wake up in the morning with a neck-ache.

Suffocating the sensation of living in some kind of Alice in Wonderland alternative reality, Holly slipped under the bedspread.   Unbidden, Max’s words ran through her mind: _He’s damned dangerous._

He made no move to touch her, other than to lean over and once more lick her gently on the mouth.  Dickon, meanwhile, had established the cosiest spot available and snuggled himself happily down on it.

Occasionally, Holly enjoyed going camping in the wild places.  She’d slept in less comfortable situations, though probably none quite as strange.

The moonlight through the window shone on the smoothly muscled curve of his shoulder as he settled down with his back to her.  It felt slightly weird not to say anything as she put her head on the cushion, but she had to follow his lead – now that he’d granted her the strange and risky privilege of coming this close to him.

Would she live to regret her own daring?  No doubt Max would have many other words for it, but he lived in a world of straight lines and bright lights.  She, on the other hand, often had to pick her way through dangerous twilights, following wandering marsh-flames, and seldom with any certainty of a safe ending for anyone. 

Obdurately she mouthed _‘Night, sweetie'_ at the back of his head.  Then, as she settled down herself, she wondered where JJ was, and what he’d have said if he could have seen her now.  Probably nothing that would have been complimentary, but then her big cousin wasn’t unfamiliar with risks; as a MACO officer he surely understood there are times when you can’t do anything else but take a chance if you want to carry out your assignment.

Smiling at the thought of him, she shut her eyes, and drifted off to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Even before Holly opened her eyes, she was completely aware of being watched.

There was no point in pretending to be asleep, so she didn’t.

For all the times before that she’d been in very great danger, she knew that she’d never been nearer to dying.  He was almost on top of her, watching her reaction to him and waiting to kill.

“Hi sweetie,” she said, reaching up and running a hand lightly along the angle of his jaw.  “Want breakfast?”

His eyes had been freezing pools.  Slowly life returned to them, and he blinked.  “Yes, please.”

“Porridge, or would you prefer toast?  Or you can have both, if you like.”  She crossed her arms behind her head on the cushion, and smiled up at him.  “I have some damson and walnut jam in the cupboard, but I’m afraid I’m into my last jar.  If you’d come later in the year you could have helped me pick some damsons and we could have made some more.”

Quick as a snake, he grabbed the bedspread and pulled it off her.  “Do you want sex?”

She considered, not moving, and then shook her head.  “Not right now, sweetie.”

“You mean ‘not ever’,” he said harshly.

Holly bit her lower lip thoughtfully, surveying him.  He was still completely naked, as she was, and fully aroused.  “Do you trust me?”

A bark of laughter.  “Fuck, I don’t even know you!”

“Then in that case–” she returned her gaze to his face, and smiled gently – “I think sex with you would be amazing, but only when we trust each other.

“And now we’ve decided that, have _you_ decided what you want for breakfast?  You’ve got to try my jam.  I insist.”

He sat back.  The expression on his face (a mixture of irritation, bewilderment and amusement) was priceless, though she carefully didn’t show that she found it so.  “Damson jam with _walnuts_ in it?”

“It’s delicious!  The first time I tried it, I could have eaten it with a spoon.  You’ll have to try it on hot crumpets.  Hot, buttery crumpets.  I’m making myself hungry thinking about it.”  She stood up and strolled to the window and looked out, enjoying the view.  It was very early, and the sun had only just begun creeping down the shoulder of Pen Hill; the dale below was still in shadow.  “Do you think crumpets for breakfast would be irredeemably odd?  I’ve got some in the cupboard.”

He was undoubtedly also enjoying the view, though probably not the same one.  When he spoke, his tone was one of exasperation.  “Do you _have_ to keep showing me what I can’t have?”

“Why, shouldn’t I trust you to control yourself?”

For the first time, he looked away from her, pretending to be watching Dickon who was burrowing among the folds of the bedspread and having the time of his life.  “I don’t– want you to end up sorry you did,” he said in a low voice.  Then, as though regretting that moment of vulnerability, he jerked his head up and glared.  “Why the fuck do you take these chances?  Do you get some kind of thrill out of it, out of walking the wire and seeing how far you can get?  Don’t you _understand_ what I am?  Don’t you _care_ what you’re risking?”

“Maybe I understand better than you do.  I know that sounds really patronising to you right now,” – she lifted a finger, forestalling an indrawn, angry breath – “but you’re not in the right position to see clearly, sweetie.  We can work on that. But for now, I’m asking _you_ to trust _me_ on this one.”

She walked back to the quilt and knelt down in front of him.  “And now I’m asking you if you’re willing to let me touch you.”

He glanced downwards.  It was pretty obvious that he was quite keen on the idea, in some respects at least, but though she smiled, she shook her head.  “Not that way.  And I’d be careful if I were you – if that keeps twitching like that, you’ll have Dickon pouncing on it.”

Unsurprisingly, he winced at the picture this conjured up.  Although up till now the kitten was still happily chasing around under the bedspread, a fold of it was quickly pressed into service to hide the tempting article from sharp little claws.

When he looked up again, however, the attempt at a flyaway grin was strained.  “You can’t blame a chap for hoping.  Especially when a lovely naked woman’s doing the asking.”

“That would be easy for you.  I’m asking for something difficult.  I’ll understand if it’s too much for you.”

“So you think I’m not used to having a naked woman touch me.”

“I think you’re used to having a naked woman touch you in ways you’re in control of.”

 _Ah._ The flinch was so quick and slight that if she’d been even a little less experienced she wouldn’t have seen it at all.

“You might at least have waited till I’d had a cup of tea,” he quipped, but his eyes weren’t laughing.

“I could,” she agreed.  “But I haven’t.  May I?”

It was apparent that he was deeply divided.  She thought to herself with aching pity that he looked like a starving dog which sees food but anticipates a blow as soon as it reaches for it.

For long moments, he paused.  Then he nodded.  “If you don’t stop when I tell you to stop, I’ll make you.  You realise that.”

“I’m not going to do anything you’ll find offensive or intrusive.  Stay here a minute.”  She scooped up Dickon, who had just emerged from his play-den and was mewing up at her for breakfast.  “Right, sweetie, you’re a hungry little boy and you had a really nice long sleep and now I’m going to make you something nice to eat.”

“Well, when you put it so nicely...”

“He’s a silly _big_ boy, isn’t he?” She carried the kitten into the kitchen and quickly put together his saucer of kitten-food.  “Now, you sit down there and eat that, and maybe later we’ll see about getting you a real home.”  Setting both him and the saucer down in the same place as before, she left him enthusiastically setting about his first meal of the day.

For all her joking, she didn’t want to be unfair to her reluctant guest.  She went into her room, pulled a short white summer tunic from the wardrobe and pulled it on.

His lips quirked wryly when she came back into his room.  “Spoilsport.”  Though as she came closer, she realised from the faint smile and lifted eyebrow that it perhaps wasn’t quite as decorous as she’d thought; the fabric was sheer, and she was wearing nothing underneath it.

“Torment in another guise....”

For all his bravado, she thought as she settled down in front of him again that he was very much afraid.  “Give me your hand. Your right hand.”

He hesitated.  Then, slowly, he extended it.

She’d brought in with her a jar of rose-scented skin cream, and as she closed the fingers of her right hand gently on his, with her left hand she was unfastening the top of the jar.  As soon as it was off, she scooped out a generous daub of cream and began smoothing it in.  His hand was very clean, the nails pared short; he evidently washed meticulously as a matter of course, but the skin was a little dry from all the soap.  It began absorbing the cream almost at once as she worked it into every crevice, massaging the pad of musculature at the base of his thumb. 

He was right-handed.  This was the hand that held the gun, the knife, the wire.  The hand that killed.

When it was clean and conditioned, she lifted it gently and rested it circling her throat.  She left it there for perhaps a minute, and then without moving it she leaned up and kissed his forehead.  “That’s the lot, sweetie.”

“That’s... it?  All you want?”  He didn’t move his hand, but looked at her doubtfully.

“I think that’s a lot, don’t you?  Thank you.”  Holly smiled at him, removed the hand without haste and placed it back on the knee from which she’d raised it.  “Now, shall we get breakfast?"

He nodded, plainly bewildered, and watched unmoving as she stood briskly.  “You never did say what you wanted, so  I'll save the crumpets and jam for lunch.  We’ll have some porridge instead.  With raspberries and cream on top.  And tomorrow _you_ can make the breakfast.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Thank you anyway.  Goodbye.”

Holly set down the telephone and looked severely across the kitchen.  “Don’t think I didn’t see that.”

He was still playing with the kitten, pulling the string on the by-now rather tattered paper butterfly.  She watched him consciously smooth out the grin before raising innocent grey eyes to meet hers.  “What?”

“ _I do not need a kitten_.  Even if he is cute.  Which, I grant you, he is.”

“Doesn’t sound like anyone else does either.”  He grabbed Dickon and rolled him onto his back, at which the kitten began playfighting the hand that held him, scrabbling at it with his hind paws and trying to bite a finger.  “Think you’re fierce, don’t you?  Think you’re wicked!  Well you’re just a bloody little amateur.  You’re playing with the big boy now!”

“Sounds like _two_ people around here are deluding themselves,” Holly remarked.

“Oh, I think I’m big enough to put a smile on your face.”

“The word around which the delusion centres is ‘wicked’.”

The grin was back, but now it was more of a frozen grimace that bared his teeth as he looked around at her.  “You think the Section hires me to help little old ladies across the road?”

“I think you’d be much happier if it did.”

He didn’t answer for a few moments.  Then, looking down at the kitten again, “Nobody gives a damn if I’m _happy_ doing what I do.  They give me orders and I carry them out.  That’s all that matters in the end.”  He glanced up again for an instant, sneering.  “They even quoted Nelson at me:  ‘Firstly, you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own respecting their propriety.’”

She contemplated him.  For a man he was short – probably only an inch or two taller than she was herself – and though she’d had ample opportunity to notice that he had an impressively toned physique, his basic frame was rather on the small side.  Admiral Horatio Nelson, the hero of the British Navy, had been undersized too.

There had undoubtedly been an excellent reason why that quote would have been used against him.  Whoever produced it must have known not only that he would recognise it, but also that he would be influenced by it.

For by no means the first time, nor indeed the last, she inwardly cursed the Section.

“From what I remember from my history lessons, Nelson was a cultured, gentle man,” she observed.  “He can’t have believed that killing people – even Frenchmen – was a moral act.  But he did it well and bravely, because it was necessary.”

Now the smile was sardonic as he completed the quotation. “‘...and thirdly, you must hate a Frenchman, as you do the devil.’  I don’t think he would have suffered _very_ many pangs of conscience.”

“I take it there are no French operatives in your team.”

“Oddly enough, no.”  He’d accepted another glass of her bramble wine, and now sipped at it using his free hand.  “Two Americans, a Norwegian and a Canadian.  And me, of course.”

By now, Dickon had stopped playfighting.  He had wrapped his paws around the imprisoning hand and was purring sleepily as a fingertip stroked him under the chin.

“You’re not going to get rid of this one, you do know that.”

She frowned direfully at him.  “As I have mentioned on more than one occasion, including just a minute ago, I do not have the time or the inclination to look after a kitten.”

“I don’t suppose you have, but you’ll keep him all the same.  You’re a sucker for a loser.”

“I do not recognise that term.”  Holly remained calm.  “In my world, there are those who need a helping hand – maybe once, maybe more than once – and that’s what I provide.  In no way does that make them a ‘loser’.”

“And in what way do you think _I_ need a helping hand?”  His voice had taken on a bitter, jeering ring.  “Come on, tell me what you’re planning.  Take me for a picnic in the country, ply me with the local ale and get me so drunk I sob my entire sorry story out on your shoulder and swear to be a reformed character henceforth?”

It was no use; she couldn’t help grinning at the picture this conjured up.  “It almost makes me wish I’d thought of it.  If I organised the picnic and promised to bring the ale, _would_ you?  Pretty please with cheese?  I’d _so_ love to see you maudlin drunk.”

“Oh, piss off.”  He looked down at Dickon.  “And this little shite’s gone to sleep.  I know what’ll happen if I try to get my hand away: he’ll wake up and bite me.”

It was perfectly true.  As kittens will, Dickon had fallen asleep mid-play, still wrapped around the hand that had been pretending to pin him down.

“My codename’s Jaguar,” he said casually.  “But everyone calls me Jag.”

“After the car.  Of course.  There’s one in the Transport Museum in York.” Holly gleamed at him.  “My uncle was a car enthusiast.  I think if he could have had any car he’d have had a Rolls-Royce, because he said they were ‘the top of the class’, but he always said Jaguar was British engineering at its best.”

“‘British engineering at its best’.” A snort of laughter.  “I’ve been called a few things, but that’s a new one.”

“I think it’s very apt!  It gives you, well, a bit of a _cachet._ A bit of _style._ And God knows you could do with it.”

His right hand was still wrapped in kitten.  He was therefore obliged to point the index finger of the other at his hostess.  “I didn’t come here to be bloody insulted, you know.”

“Of course not.  I’d describe it as a beneficial side effect, wouldn’t you?” Now he appeared so comically indignant that she couldn’t help laughing aloud at him.  “Isn’t that what friends do?”

He looked arrested.  “Is that what you think we are?” he asked incredulously.

“Would that be so terrible?”

There was no answer for a moment. “Not so much terrible,” he responded at last, “as ... unlikely.”

She was sitting in her favourite armchair by the hearth, and tucked her feet up underneath her.  “Tell me about the last person you regarded as a friend.  You don’t have to tell me their name or anything.”

For some minutes she thought he wasn’t going to answer.  When at last he did, his voice was very low, and though he was staring down at Dickon she suspected he wasn’t seeing him at all.  “He was a doctor.”

“And did you know him for long?” she prompted gently.

“A while.  I’d guess, a few weeks; a couple of months at most.  I can’t be sure.”

“And he was good to you.  He helped you.”

“He tried.  Tried hard, as a matter of fact.  It wasn’t his fault it all went wrong in the end; and I suppose from the Section’s point of view he was partly successful.”

“So you’ve had treatment through the Section before now.”

“I suppose you could call it that.”  He performed a strange mouth-movement, pulling his upper lip jerkily back and flicking the tip of his tongue out, which she recognised after a moment as something horribly like the nervous lip-licking of a scared dog.  “Fuck, I don’t think he ... in hindsight I don’t think he had the first _idea_ what they’d called him in to do.”

“If he’d treated you successfully once, I’m surprised they didn’t send you to him again.”

“He left.  I suspect that being as unprepared as he was to start with, he couldn’t hack it when it all went wrong.  Poor bastard, I felt sorry for him in the end.” A brief, soundless laugh.  “He did his best.  It wasn’t his fault the bread fell butter-side-down.”

“But a trained psychologist...” she said doubtfully.

“A trained psychologist?  I’ll eat my phase rifle if he was a psychologist.  He’d trained as a surgeon, I know that much–” careful not to disturb Dickon, he turned his wrist slightly to show the scars– “but if I had to call his speciality, I’d say he was some kind of experimental neurologist.”

Holly was startled, and showed it.  She’d have thought Max would have been informed if there had been some kind of violent trauma to the brain; it could change the playing field significantly.  Not that she would have acted differently if she’d known, but it was something she should have been made aware of, from a professional standpoint.  “May I ask how long you spent in hospital for your injury?”

 _“Hospital?_ ” Jag snorted with laughter again.  “They wouldn’t have let me near a hospital.”

“So where did...?”

“This?”  He glanced at the wrist, and then back at her.  “You’re _sure_ you’re the one with top Starfleet clearance?  I haven’t come to the wrong address, by any chance?”

“Sweetie, I clean up after the Section.  I don’t work for them.”

A faint nod, and a shrug.  “They have a treatment centre in Starfleet HQ.  Enough to cope with minor damage.   They can keep it quiet that way.”

At that moment the timer on the board shrilled.  Holly stood up and walked into the kitchen, where she took out from the oven the tray of scones whose warm smell had been permeating the lounge for the past fifteen minutes.  A second tray that had been on a lower shelf was moved up to finish off, and she slid the first batch deftly onto a cooling rack.

She was glad to have something to do.  It gave her time to reorder her thoughts, and to calm the sick anger churning in her stomach.  For all her experience, she could hardly control her revulsion at the way a human being had been forced to endure surgery in an environment where so much could have gone wrong.  The doctor probably had some experience in surgery; the movement of the wrist suggested that whatever he’d done to it had been done well enough to leave it functioning efficiently.  But a legally appointed hospital was the place for such treatments, with a properly appointed surgeon – not some hole-in-the-corner place with a well-meaning medical practitioner out of his specialist sphere!

Jaguar made no effort to continue the conversation.  He sat cross-legged on the floor and lifted Dickon into his lap, where he sat cradling the sleeping creature.  He seemed surprisingly phlegmatic about the absolute impropriety of the treatment he had received, and she was obliged to remind herself forcibly that here and now was neither the place nor the time to force the issue.  Unless he gave her permission to do so, she couldn’t even bring the matter to Maxwell’s attention at some point in the future – that would be breaking patient confidentiality, which would be completely unforgivable, though the prospect of thereby ensuring that others were not put through the same unethical process was admittedly a powerful temptation.

She busied herself for a little longer tidying up various bits and pieces and wiping some imaginary flecks of flour from the work-surface before it was time to get out the second tray of scones.  Not until these were cooling on the rack did she feel calm enough to return to the fray, and even so she warned herself sternly that if he’d come to some kind of acceptance of what had happened to him, her berating him about it wasn’t going to help matters one little bit.

She split and buttered a couple of scones, and made mugs of tea.  Then she put everything on a tray and sat down at his right hand side, laying the tray on the hearthrug in front of them.

“Very domesticated,” Jag commented drily, reaching for a half of scone with his free hand.  “Thank you.”

“Why don’t you tell me about this doctor friend of yours,” she suggested, stroking Dickon’s head lightly with one fingertip.  The kitten squeaked drowsily, extended one paw so that the claws peeped out, and went back to sleep.

“Not much to tell.”  His tone had gone closed again.  His sidelong glance was wary.  “He treated me.  He did his best.  End of.”

“There’s one thing I don’t get, sweetie.  If they were treating you for this kind of injury–” she nodded towards his wrist– “then why did they hire an experimental neurologist?”

He said nothing.  He simply sat immobile, staring straight ahead.  His mouth was a rigid line.

“That’s fine.  Maybe you’ll tell me one day.  When you feel you can,” said Holly gently.  “You see, I know the Section, I know they do terrible things to people.  And when you’ve had terrible things done to you, you don’t always want to talk about them.  Not to anyone.  I understand that.”

He blinked.  The slowness of the movement told her that it was quite different to the automatic cleansing of the cornea that happened without conscious intention.  This was almost as automatic, but it was a reflex reaction to memories that he couldn’t shut out – his body’s instinctive attempt at protection of the eyes that had seen horrors.

“I’d like to touch you,” she went on, still careful to keep her voice calm and quiet.  “I want to put my hand on you so you don’t feel alone.  Is that all right with you?”

“Don’t touch my head.” He almost whispered it.  “Anywhere but my head.  Just don’t.”

“That’s fine.”

He’d got dressed before breakfast, and was wearing dark grey denim jeans and a plain blue T-shirt.  Moving slowly, she laid her left hand very lightly on his left shoulder, allowing her forearm to rest across his back.  The muscles there were rigid, and even through the cotton she could feel the slight prickle of sweat.  The day was warm, but not nearly hot enough for him to be sweating indoors.

Still slowly, she let her fingers start kneading those rigid muscles.  After a moment, his head drooped forward slightly.  “That ... feels good.”

“If you feel like it later, sweetie, and we’re both still comfortable with each other, I’ll give you a proper massage.  With my own lavender oil.  It’ll help you relax.”

“ _Lavandula angustifolia_ ,” he said unexpectedly.  “English lavender.  All along your front path.  Pretty.  I notice you’ve got a thing about white, though.”

“I’m glad you liked it.  As for the white theme, I’m sure you’ve already noticed it’s not just the garden.”

“Indeed.”  His gaze roamed from the real white roses that spilled from the vase on the table to the silk ones that lay on the top of the bookcase, and thence to the embroidered ones that bordered the picture over the mantelpiece: a beautifully painted representation of the armoured King Richard on horseback.  Around the open helmet gleamed the gold circlet of royalty, while behind the king a quartered banner flaunted the ancient ‘Leopards and Lilies’ against the sunlit sky.

“‘Loyaulte Me Lie’.”  The words were picked out in gold cord on the mounting of the picture, and to her surprise her guest knew what they meant.  “‘Loyalty Binds Me’.  And you with a red rose in the corner of your Yorkist garden!  Shame on you.”

Holly hung her head in pretend embarrassment.  “It was there when I bought the house,” she explained.  “And I use the flowers for so many things ... rose petal jelly, rose hip cordial....”

“As long as you didn’t plant it yourself, I forgive you.”  His tone was so serious that for a moment she thought he actually meant it, until she caught the sideways grey glint of laughter; then they both laughed a little.

“You intrigue me,” he went on.  “An attractive young woman, living apparently on her own in the middle of nowhere, affiliated to an organisation based thousands of miles away, and with nothing better to do with her life than make rose petal jelly and run a sideline of treating the occasional homicidal maniac.”

“I wouldn’t change it,” she said lightly.  “I’ll have you know my rose petal jelly is very highly thought of at the village fete.”

“I trust they’re equally impressed by your other talents.”

“Well.  Those aren’t something I make a practice of advertising.”

He laughed soundlessly.  “Probably not.”  His gaze became more focused, curious.  “Do you have any family?  What do they think of all this?”

“Only one.  A cousin.  JJ.  He knows.  I think he worries a bit, but he knows better than to try to stop me.”  She smiled, thinking of her redoubtable cousin Jay.  “He’s a MACO.”

“Bloody hell.”  Jag looked comically alarmed.  “He’s not likely to visit, is he?  He’ll think I’m after your virtue.”

“Aren’t you? I’m _so_ disappointed.”

“Well of course I am.  That’s why I don’t want any bloody cousin turning up and chucking a spanner in my dastardly plots.”

“Feel free to plot as much as you like, sweetie.  It’s good for my ego, if nothing else.”

“You’re such a bullshitter.”

She laughed in her turn, and picked up her mug of tea.  “It helps.”


	8. Chapter 8

She gave him the massage late that evening, after a quiet day spent mostly reading.

He stretched out on the kitchen table, that being the best height for her, though his lower legs overhung it by some measure.  Although they both knew by now that nudity was not an issue, he chose to wear a pair of boxers – to save her blushes, he said.

His body was compact and well muscled.  As she worked the warm oil into the skin, she noted once more that it bore scars.  Some of these were undoubtedly bites – one, in his left thigh, must have been deep, and had healed with no obvious sign of any form of treatment.  He had a number of bite marks down the outside of his arms.  All were healed, but given that dermal regeneration treatments were quite readily available in Starfleet, she wondered that he’d not been given access to them.  At some point he must have been attacked by something incredibly vicious – maybe more than one of them – and she shuddered inwardly to think of it, even while adding another layer to her suspicions.

A second thing she noted was that in places the surfaces of his knees bore traces of what seemed to be old calluses.  If she hadn’t been looking out for them, she quite probably wouldn’t have noticed them at all, but they added yet more evidence to the pile.

Asking a direct question was not in the bargain.  She compared the process to tickling a trout; he would undoubtedly be aware of her proximity, but haste or a too-direct approach would put his defences up.  That these could and indeed would be formidable she knew, even if he truly believed she was trying to help him.  That he was even more dangerous than Max had suspected, she was now sure.  But that he was therefore less deserving of (or less in need of) her help, she would not even consider.

“Oof!” He grunted as she attacked a particularly knotted muscle close to his left clavicle.  “Do you make your own bread, by any chance?”

“Only when I ‘knead’ to, sweetie.” She cackled at her own wit, while he groaned.

“That must be the oldest joke in the Universe!”

“It’s the old ones that are the good ones, that’s what I always say.” She slapped on some more lavender oil before enquiring with mock solicitude, “You do _like_ lavender, don’t you?”

“Considering I stink like a bloody lavender farm already, you picked a fine time to ask,” he growled, clenching his teeth against a fresh assault.  “Incidentally, this morning you were polite enough to ask my permission before you touched me.  This evening you’re manhandling me like a bloody Sumo wrestler.  It’s not that I’m complaining, but it all seems a bit bloody rushed to me!”

“Ah, wait till you see what happens to you tomorrow!” she replied breezily.

“Oh God,” he muttered.  “What have they given me over into – Section bloody 32?”

She didn’t answer, but went on working.  After a moment, he turned his head and peered narrowly up at her over his folded arm.  “Ah. So you _can_ be provoked.”

Holly paused for a moment, flexing her fingers, and gave him back look for look.  “Tell me why you won’t let anyone touch your head.”

“Fuck off.”

“Fair enough.” She attacked the muscles below the nape of his neck.  They were knotted hard with tension, and she worked her thumbs into them without mercy, eliciting a shower of stifled yelps that she was quite sure no enemy would have been privileged to hear.

When she’d finally worked them smooth, she settled her fingers into the hollows of his collar bones and began pushing her thumbs hard up the base of his neck, following the line of the tendons and the muscles that led upward.  After a moment, however, she realised that she could hear a low growling.  Every muscle in his body was rigid.

Sense dictated unequivocally that she stop _at once_.  She was coming far too close to the red line, and he was warning her off from crossing it.

Sense was not always the best guide in such cases.  She followed instinct instead.

Her teeth dug into the neck muscle she had just been massaging, hard enough to hurt.  The growl changed to a shriek of fury and fear, but he lay still, a puppy gripped by a dominant adult.

His hair – so close to her now – would feel soft and springy under her fingers.  The skull beneath was probably undamaged, but she had never expected otherwise; terror like this lay far deeper than that.

Very slowly she eased off the pressure of her teeth, releasing him without touching his head after all.  “It’s OK, sweetie,” she said.  “You don’t have to be afraid.  No-one’s going to hurt you here.”

He lay completely still for a count of perhaps five seconds.  Then the bunched musculature underneath her exploded, throwing her off.  _“Do you fucking WANT to die?”_ he roared at her, thrusting her away from him as he slithered off the table.

His glare was terrifying but she held her ground.  “What I want to do is to achieve what you’re here for.  To help you.  And I’ll be honest, right now I’m the only chance you’ve got of getting back any of what they took from you.  You want to kill me, though, go ahead.  It’ll be a joint funeral.  My body, your career.”

“I could kill you with one hand tied behind my back,” he said scornfully.

She nodded sadly.  “I’m sure.  If the Section wanted me dead, you’d do it without blinking twice.  You might even manage to convince yourself it was justified.”

He bent down, pulled on the tracksuit bottoms he’d discarded, and stalked out of the back door.  The slam of it behind him woke Dickon, who once again signified that he was hungry.

At least there was one person in the house whose needs were straightforward and simple.  Sighing, Holly got out another tin of kitten food and mushed up a portion on the saucer.  “I hope he’ll come back, sweetie.  I pushed my luck this time, didn’t I?”

It was unsurprising that she received no response, being alone in the house with a kitten wholly interested in the contents of the saucer as she laid it down.  But afterwards, when Dickon had filled his little belly and proudly evacuated where he should, she watched him pad around the lounge, peering up at the chairs as though hoping to find someone there who was willing to play with him.  Finding no playmate, he plopped down on his bottom in front of her and looked crestfallen, his mouth opening in a small disappointed miaow.

The tattered paper butterfly on its piece of string was resting on the mantelpiece.  She picked it up.  It wasn’t fair for the little mite to have nobody pull it for him; it wasn’t something she’d ever done before, but it was simple enough and gave him so much pleasure.

She was still pulling it to and fro when the back door opened again.  Jag walked in, plucked the string from her hand and tied it around the back of the nearest dining-chair, at a height that would dangle what remained of the butterfly at a tempting height for kittenish paws.  Then, seeing Dickon begin plotting its downfall and ruination, he knelt in front of Holly and put his face into her lap.

“Only if you want me to, sweetie,” she said softly.

He didn’t answer, but his face moved once against her thighs.  His hands were resting at either side of her hips; they were clenched into fists, and the knuckles of them were white.

She lowered her right hand with infinite gentleness on to the back of his head, and began stroking it.  Shudders coursed through his body; she thought he was almost hyperventilating with fear.  “Ssh, sweetie.  Hush.  You’re fine, you’re safe.  Nobody will hurt you.  Thank you so much for trusting me.”

He gulped audibly, and then began speaking.  His voice jerked and swooped and shattered on the words as the story spilled from him, the story of a young man’s one-night stand that ended in torture and terror at the hands of a Section 31 agent to leave him with a dread of drowning that effectively ended his hopes of a career in the Royal Navy.

The woman had drugged him with wine and drowned him in a washing-up bowl, forcing his head down into it till his air was exhausted and he had no choice but to breathe in water.  He had always been apprehensive around it but even though she had presumably resuscitated him afterwards, that night his anxiety became full-blown phobia.  Soon after, with his route into the Navy blocked, he had been gathered in by Starfleet; and thence the path to the Section had been laid out in front of him in such a way he had all but sleepwalked into it.

“Oh, sweetie.” She fought not to let the overwhelming rage she felt seep into her voice, only the compassion.  “It wasn’t your fault.  None of it was your fault.”

_“I should have been stronger!”_ He almost screamed it into her flesh.  _“I was weak, I was a failure. My dad says I’m a runt and it’s true. I should have fought harder, I should have won.  This all happened to me because I’m a weakling!”_

She cupped the nape of his neck and looked up at the ceiling as though searching for inspiration there while she blinked away hot, stinging tears.  “There’s something else you need to tell me about, sweetie.  If you want to.  When you want to.”

His hands clenched around her pelvic bones and he shook his head violently, but he didn’t withdraw it.

Holly went on stroking his hair, softly and steadily.  Outside the long summer dusk was making the dale rich and hazy, and she sang to him, an old Irish lullaby:

_“The October winds lament around the castle of Dromore...”_

A long, shuddering sigh went through him as she sang on.

_“..._ _Take heed, young eaglet, ‘til thy wings are feathered fit to soar!_ _  
A little rest, and then the world is full of work to do..."_

And then, after a long silence, he spoke, his voice now so low it was right at the edge of hearing and she had to strain to hear every word:

“They said it was only offered to candidates who weren’t afraid to take a risk...."


	9. Chapter 9

They shared a bed that night.

He was too drained to argue, and too exhausted to do more than curl up in her arms and sleep.  It was not a restful sleep, however; he twitched and muttered, so that she hugged him close and stroked him as she would have done Dickon, planting reassuring kisses on his sweat-wet forehead.

In the brief periods when he sank into quieter depths, Holly lay staring into the darkness, wishing with all her soul that the duty of confidentiality allowed her to put a full spread of torpedoes into the careers of the people who had done such unspeakable things to a human being.  Now, at last, she had proof of the evil she had long suspected; but she knew that if he had not believed that he was speaking as to a priest in the confessional, he would never have uttered a word. 

It was part of the deal that she must necessarily shoulder at least some of the burdens that she could coax her patients to slough off.  Never before, however, had she felt so weighted down with sorrow.  Small wonder that the man beside her had become a proficient killer; he had been deliberately and callously forged into one, and she realised sadly that even if he left the Section for good, it was possible he might never fully recover.  It was the conflict between his true nature and his warped one that was causing him so much anguish that even his handlers felt him to be a risk – she wondered with fury whether any of them knew or cared what terrible mental trauma the process caused to its victims.

Was he technically sane? 

There had been times since his arrival when she’d wondered, but in the light of what she’d learned, she believed that he was as mentally stable as he could be in the circumstances.  He’d been forcibly re-conditioned into humanity, but the wolf-identity was a part of him he’d probably never fully lose.  Perhaps times when he could feel it safe to revert to it, as he’d done the previous night, would act as some kind of pressure valve.  Now he knew he could do so and be accepted, that could only be beneficial – if, of course, he was willing to accept it as necessary.

His tragedy lay in the fact that he was, by nature as well as nurture, a deeply honourable man.  At heart, she thought, he was Lancelot, but his enforced role was that of Mordred.  Every dishonourable act he carried out under orders piled more and more shame on his conscience afterwards: _‘You don’t think at the time, but you do afterwards ... afterwards, you pay and pay...’_   Sex had become his anaesthesia and then his drug, and probably at least one of his fellow-operatives had found the same release (during the massage she’d seen the faint, faded marks of nail-scrapes on the back of his shoulders); that, she thought, had saved him from hitting the self-destruct button before now.

There was a very real possibility that in time – if he survived long enough – his conscience would harden.  As deeply as the prospect grieved her, it might well be best for his peace.  If he no longer perceived the gulf between his potential self and his actual self, he would no longer suffer the anguish of soul that had brought him here.

Finally, horribly, the Section would have had its way....

“Jesus, Max!” Tears squeezed out of her eyes, but she kept her voice to the smallest of whispers.  “This is happening right under your damned nose and you don’t know a thing about it!  How _blind_ are you people over there!”

“It’s amazing how blind people can be when blindness serves their best interests.”  To all intents and purposes he’d been fast asleep, but she was already discovering that he had an uncanny ability to move from sleep to complete alertness in a second; perhaps that was one of the legacies of his wolf conditioning.

“No, but...” She stroked a stray lock of hair off his temple, and tried to find a vent for her despair that wouldn’t mock his experience, which was so utterly different from her own.  “There are decent men, _good_ men, in Starfleet – I can’t believe they’d just deliberately shut their eyes to what’s going on!”

He shrugged.  “They may shut their eyes to _knowing_ what’s going on.  That’s not quite the same.”

“It’s morally culpable!” she snapped.  And then smiled wryly to find herself attacking while he defended the organisation that had damaged him so badly he had ended up here.

It was not yet dawn.  Having had no more than cat-naps herself, Holly was aware that if she didn’t manage to nod off properly soon, she’d have to award herself a few hours at some point during the next day to catch up on her missing sleep.  For the time being, however, she was still thrumming with the adrenaline of her pain and anger.

Her companion had been lying on his back.  Now he turned over to face her.  Dimly in the faint light from the window she made out his curious stare.

“Why do you care so much?  You don’t even know my real name.”

“I care because that’s who I am.  And I care because anyone in their right minds _ought_ to care when something like this is happening.  It’s – it’s just criminal.”

“It’s not pleasant.” He spoke slowly, his tone thoughtful.  “And God knows it’s not easy to live with, as I think I demonstrated last night.”

“Thank you for that, sweetie.  For trusting me.  I hope it helped, even a little.”

“I suspect the Section have no idea just how good you are at what you do.  For your own sake and mine, don’t ever let on.”  The shadows in his voice suggested he wasn’t entirely joking.

“In my own way, I suppose I help them continue with their dirty work, so I’m not guiltless myself,” she replied bitterly.

He nodded.  To do otherwise would have been disingenuous, if not dishonest.  “I won’t pretend that what we do is often legal,” he admitted, but went on with another shrug: “but that said, it deals effectively with problems.  ‘The law finds itself hamstrung by its own limitations and the cleverness of lawyers’ – that’s a quote from my Uncle Alastair, and _he_ sat on the King’s Bench.  So the Section sidesteps the clever lawyers, that’s all.  It’s amazing how many problems that solves for the decent people who are left.”

“Sweetie, you cannot justify Section 31 setting itself up as judge and jury.”

“I’m not the judge or the jury.  I’m just the executioner.” His eyes gleamed at her mockingly and then slid down her body.  His hand moved to cup her naked breast.  “Now, I believe you said something about when we trusted each other...?”

For a couple of moments she took sensual pleasure in the light pressure of his fingers against her skin.  She made no effort to hide her body’s response to the thoughts of what would follow if she said _Yes_ , and indeed she was sorely tempted; she had no doubt that he would give her immense pleasure, and it had been too long since she’d been in a man’s arms.

“No, sweetie.”  She kissed the tip of his nose.  “Thank you, but no.”

He studied what lay within the circle of his thumb and forefinger.  “I see an incredibly tempting little _Yes_ going on down here.”

“I’m sure you do,” she agreed, smiling, “but unfortunately for both of you, I’m the grown-up who makes the decisions around here.”

“Oh, I’m sure I could– _fuck!_ ” He almost bounded up the bed, banged his head on the pine headboard and collapsed on the pillow in a swearing heap.  “That bloody cat scared the shit out of me!”

“Oh, sweetie!” Dickon must have slipped in past the door (not properly shut) and climbed up on the bed, drawn by the sound of the voices from on top of it.  Now, startled by the eruptive response to his innocently enquiring whiskers, he flattened himself on the counterpane with a scared squeak.  “What _are_ you doing in here, you naughty little thing?”

“Wrecking the hopes of a naughty big thing,” growled Jag, glaring at the offender as Holly picked up the kitten and began comforting him.

“Better sooner rather than later,” she said with a grin.


	10. Chapter 10

The next ten days and nights followed much the same pattern.  Her companion was as mercurial as a weekend in April, and she was as much stimulated as exhausted by the constant battle of wits in which his presence in the house engaged her.

He continued to deride her steady declaration that Dickon was a temporary feature of her life.  She continued to try to find the kitten a good home, but the vet’s gloomy forecast on that front was being borne out: the rescue centres for miles around already had all the cats they could cope with.  And slowly but surely, the little creature was becoming a friend.  His confident welcoming chirrup and the way he would run to her with his tail in the air made her feel all the more heinous a villain every time she tried to find someone to take him away from her.

Jag’s mental state slowly seemed to become more stable.  The periods during which he was snappy, suspicious and even potentially dangerous diminished, and only on a couple more nights did he revert to wolf-identity.  On each of these she behaved as though nothing were amiss, and by morning he was himself again.  Neither of them ever alluded to this reversion, though she was more upset by it than she allowed herself to show; _damn_ her duty of confidentiality that would allow this criminal misuse of innocent young men and women to continue!

“You won’t have to endure my company much longer,” he remarked one morning, as he set out the breakfast things.  “They want me back by Wednesday.  Sane or otherwise.”

“Sweetie, that is not funny.”

He shrugged.  “I’m not laughing.”

Holly had been grilling bacon, but at this she turned down the heat setting and came over to him.  He was wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt, and looked fit and rested, but his eyes wore the old look of defiant recklessness, trying to hold her at bay.

“You’re a shithead,” she said gently.  “Give me a cuddle.”

That, he was always willing to do.  It said much for how he had changed that his body was completely relaxed as her arms went around him.

Inevitably, his hands slipped down to her buttocks.  Just as inevitably, she returned them to her waist.  They compromised on a location that left him feeling just a little smug that he was getting away with something.

“Breakfast can wait,” he breathed, kissing her.

“So can you.”  She kissed his nose and released him with a parting pat on the bum.

“I’m not sure two weeks of sex deprivation is a recognised form of therapy for Black Ops agents,” he grumbled, returning to the basket of cutlery he’d set down.  “I’ll have you know you’ve already got away with murder, and you won’t even let me shag you.”

“Don’t take it personally, sweetie.” Holly smiled at him as she turned the bacon over and increased the heat setting again.  “It just means I value you too much to add myself to the list of women you fucked and forgot.”

His eyebrows rose, though next moment they contracted in a frown.  She thought he was about to reply, but instead he turned away and concentrated on laying out the tableware with perfect precision – an activity that she watched thoughtfully even while she kept an eye on the bacon and presently tipped eggs into the frying pan.

Silence was not unusual between them; they were perfectly capable of being comfortable together without needing to talk.  But she suspected that his silence now indicated he was troubled by her reply.

That was something for him to deal with.  She was not going to press the issue.

She finished operations on the cooker while he buttered the toast, still silent.  It was a beautiful morning; outside, the birds were singing, while inside Dickon fruitlessly chased a sunspot on the floor that was cast by a crystal hanging in the kitchen window.  The window being open, the glass unicorn above the crystal turned on its wire in every stray breeze, and as it turned so did the sunspots it cast, much to Dickon’s fascination.

Leaving the kitten to expend his energy in vain on trying to capture the things he could see so clearly but never set paw on, the two of them sat down to eat.  Her companion poured the tea, but although he raised his own to his mouth he set it back down untasted in the saucer with a click that drew her attention.

“It wouldn’t be ‘fuck and forget’,” he said quietly.  “I can’t believe you think that of me.”

“Sweetie, right now I don’t think it’s really the best time for us to make things complicated.  You’ve got to leave in a couple of days, and I ... I’m not invulnerable either, you know.”

He digested that in silence as he started eating.  “You’ve never shown the slightest interest in protecting yourself,” he said presently.

“No relationship is as simple as the interests of only one of the people in it.  And that’s especially true if it _wasn’t_ just a ‘fuck and forget’ for you.  Though of course, you might be just saying that to get my knickers off,” she added with a twinkle.

“I’ve already seen you without your knickers.”

“Does that worry you?  It doesn’t worry me.”

“It bloody well ought to worry you,” he growled.  “I was sent here because even the Section couldn’t depend on me, and there are you flaunting your arse at me and thinking I’m too much of a gentleman to do more than admire it!”

“But you haven’t, have you?  So there you are.  I was right all along.”  She triumphantly speared half of a grilled tomato.

“Another word might be ‘lucky’,” he retorted through gritted teeth.  “ _Do_ you just enjoy walking the wire?  Have you ever _stopped_ to think about the risks, or are you some kind of closet adrenaline junkie?

“I mean, I get it.  I know there’s a kick in seeing just how far you can push it, how much you can get away with, God knows I do it all the time.  But I don’t do it for fun like you seem to do, and you’ve got so much more to live for than I have.”

“I’ve never heard so much drivel in my entire life!” Holly set down her cutlery with such violence that Dickon fled under the sideboard.  “Don’t you _dare_ , ever again, in my hearing, say that you have less to live for than I have!”

The brief tenderness in his eyes vanished in a flare of anger.  “You know fuck-all about it!”

“I know more than you do if you think that life is something without value – even if yours isn’t what you want right now!”  She stood up, reached across the table and grabbed him by a fistful of his T-shirt.  “You are a brave, honourable, good-looking young man, you’re in a bad place right now but I know, I _know_ , that sooner or later you’ll come through it and you’ll look in the mirror and be proud of the man you see looking back at you!”

His hand moved and for a second she thought he was going to slap her.  But his fingers twisted in her hair and pinned her while he moved in and kissed her savagely.  “Let me fuck you,” he hissed.  “I want you so much.  Spread yourself for me and I’ll be the best you ever had.”

“No!”  She pushed him off.  “You want to make this about sex because that’s the only thing about yourself you can believe in, and I’m not going to let you.  Your value is nothing to do with how many times you can make me orgasm – even if it probably would be in double figures!”

They glared at each other across the table, but eventually she released her grip of his clothing, sat down again and began eating.  At first this was in a tense silence, snatching glances, but eventually they caught each other at it.  It occurred forcibly to Holly that they were like two nervous cats peering around a dustbin, each hoping that the other has gone away.  The thought was so ridiculous that she exploded into giggles, which set Jag off as well, and moments later both of them were in peals of laughter.

“If you change your mind, you will let me know, won’t you?” he asked, wiping his eyes.  “And I’ll do my best to make the double figures.”

“Oh dear!  Oh my!” she gasped.  “– Yes, sweetie, you’ll be the first to know, I promise.”

“You do realise you talk to me like I’m about five.  And that’s another thing – I told you my name the first day I got here, so why the bloody hell do you keep calling me the same thing you call that cat?”

Without answering, though she was still chuckling intermittently, she pierced the yolk of her egg with the point of her knife and carefully coaxed the runny yellow insides onto a piece of fried bread, which she sprinkled with salt and then ate with every evidence of enjoyment.  Only after she’d popped the last piece into her mouth did she look up at him, apparently completely unperturbed.  “You have not told me your name,” she pointed out.  “You told me the handle by which an immoral organisation chooses to refer to you.  You are neither a feline predator nor a classic car, and I am not employed by Section 31.  Therefore I am not going to call you Jaguar.”

He sat back, folded his arms and glowered at her.  “Then for God’s sake find something a bit more dignified than ‘Sweetie’!”

“‘Shithead’?” she offered demurely.

A snort.  “It’s an improvement on ‘Sweetie’, I suppose.”

“It’s a deal.” Holly buttered a second piece of toast and gave him her sweetest smile.  “‘Sweetie and Shithead’.  Sounds like a comedy duo on a late-night talk show.  Not sure it’ll ever make the BBC, though, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

Jag dealt viciously with a sausage.  “I swear, if ever I get my hands on your arse I’ll give it _such_ a slapping.”

“Even such an alluring promise as that doesn’t tempt me.  Sorry and all that.”  She dropped another kiss on his nose as she went to refill the teapot, and, still grumbling, he went back to finishing his breakfast.


	11. Chapter 11

Sooner than she could have believed possible, it was time for him to leave.

A phone call announced that a taxi was due to arrive in half an hour.  It took less than a third of that for him to push all his belongings into his holdall, and then he and Holly were left in the lounge, looking at each other.

“Even I can’t make double figures in twenty minutes,” he said eventually.  “But come to bed and I’ll see how far I can get towards it.”

Dickon was still a resident of the cottage, despite her efforts to get him rehomed.  As though aware of the undercurrents in the air, the kitten put his front paws on the black trainers and mewed to be picked up and stroked – which Jag did, although his attention never wavered from Holly’s face.

“Oh, sweetie, you wouldn’t believe how tempted I am.  Really.”  She laid her hands gently on his face.  “But the answer’s still ‘No’.  For both our sakes.”

A faint frown creased his forehead; his eyes searched her.  “Would you mind explaining that?”

She exhaled, and was silent for a few minutes.  “Sex ... changes things,” she said at last.  “It changes people, it changes relationships.  And I’m ... I’m happy with the way things are, with the way _we_ are.  I don’t want to risk that, not yet.  It matters to me too much.”

“Our relationship matters to you?”

“Don’t you think it should?”

“I’m a _Black Ops_ agent.  I kill people.  I lie.  I steal.  I cheat.  I whore.” He explained it to her slowly and patiently.  “You know that.”

“Of course I know that.  What difference does that make to us?”

The frown became a scowl of confusion.  “Doesn’t it _matter_ to you?”

“Sweetie, you matter to me.”

“You’re not making any sense!”  He removed her hands from his face and stepped back, putting Dickon down on the floor as he did so.  “Why the fuck should you care for someone who does what I do for a living? – and stop bloody calling me ‘sweetie’!”

“Sweetie.  People are more than their actions, and I’m not answerable to you for my feelings.  All I know is that I’ve lived this long by trusting them, and they say that you and I are friends.  And that’s all that matters to me, and I’m sorry if you don’t like it.”

For a moment longer he glared at her, and then suddenly, reluctantly, a smile of singular sweetness broke through the storm.  “I wouldn’t dare admit it if I didn’t.

“But ... there is one thing I really would like us to do before I leave.  If you’re up for it.”

=/\=

It was late afternoon.  Earlier the sun had been shining, but a light veil of rain had swept up the dale, and now even Pen Hill was only a dull shape across the valley.

Still, neither of them felt the cold, even though both of them were naked and on all fours in her bedroom.  He nudged and nipped her playfully, and she bit his ears and rolled over to nibble his fingers; looking up, she saw the grey eyes gazing down at her with so much affection they were almost unrecognisable.

“I think you’d better get dressed again before that taxi arrives,” she told him, reaching up again to stroke his cheek.  “Otherwise the poor man’s going to get a horrible shock.”

“I could still give you a taster.”  He leaned down and nuzzled her nose.  “I’m a quick worker, you know.  And you really have got the most delectable....”

Holly smiled, shaking her head.  “Not this time, sweetie.”

Jag heaved a sigh as he straightened up again.  “You can’t blame a chap for trying.”

“I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t.”

They dressed again, unselfconscious and gentle with each other.  Then they walked back into the lounge, where she pressed on him a plastic container full of home-made cakes (there was just room for them in the holdall, with a push) and he stroked Dickon for the last time as the kitten ran over to him.  “You do realise you won’t be getting rid of moggy here.”

“Sweetie...”

“I’d like to think he’ll still be here with you when I think of you,” he said softly.

Holly heaved a sigh of her own.  “You really are a shithead, you know that?”

“Yes, and I’m really good at it.”  He picked Dickon up and handed him to her; the kitten purred happily up at them both.  “You don’t want to give him away anyway.  You’re as hard as a bloody marshmallow and you never were going to do it.  Everyone knew it except you.”

“I don’t _need_ a kitten!” she said in exasperation.

“No.” His lips brushed hers lightly, even as the sound of the taxi came from outside.  “But can I leave you a friend?”

“Oh, get yourself out of here before you have any more ridiculous ideas!” 

But his sidelong smile as he picked up the holdall noted that she held Dickon tightly.

They walked together to the door, and in the last moment before she opened it he kissed her again.  “Double figures next time?”

“I rule nothing in, I rule nothing out.  You may never come back here, sweetie.”  She tried to keep her voice even as she said that.  He was going back to the Section, to his team and his dangerous work.  He might die the next day, and she would probably never know.

“If I live, I will.  I promise.” He caught hold of her jaw and held it, gently but firmly.  “God help me if I know how you did it, Holly, but I need you.  I’ll most likely need you again.  _May_ I come back?”

“I told you the very first day, your welcome in this house will always be assured.  I said it and I meant it.  Whenever you need me, Shithead, I’ll be here for you.”

His serious face dissolved into laughter as he pulled the door open.  “And on that poetic note, I’ll love and leave you.”  As he stepped into the porch, he leaned back for a last kiss.  “And by the way,” he whispered, “my name’s actually Malcolm.”

She watched him stroll to the taxi and sling the holdall into the back seat before dropping into the front passenger seat.  He lowered the window long enough for one airy wave, and then the flitter was slipping away down the road, carrying him towards his destiny.

She watched until she could no longer see or hear it, and then she walked slowly back indoors.  The rain was clearing towards the west, and she should check the bean-rows in the vegetable patch; there would most likely be some early beans ready for gathering, and after that heavy shower the earth would be soft and pliable for hoeing.  There was always work to be done in the garden; weeds, her mom had always said, didn’t know the meaning of ‘holiday’.

But before anything else, she had someone whose mind was running on food.  Even in the past couple of weeks, Dickon had grown like a weed himself.  Apparently she’d have to make another appointment with the vet – to get him vaccinated and, in time, neutered. 

“I do not need a kitten!” she told him in exasperation.  To which he responded by purring with a perfectly reprehensible amount of charm, so that whether she wanted to or not she thought how lonely the house would seem without him.  With a sigh, she admitted defeat.  “But he’s right, isn’t he, sweetie?  I do need a friend.  As long as you wear a bell-collar when you go out, right?  I’m not having you depopulate the garden.  Just as long as that’s clear to the two of us.”

If Dickon had any objection to this proviso, he was wise enough to keep it to himself.  He nestled in the crook of her arm, purring even more loudly as she stroked him under the chin.

The house seemed strangely empty as she walked to the kitchen.  It always did when she’d had a patient here for a time, but she couldn’t remember a time before when the inevitable departure had struck her so hard.  It would take her a while to find her balance again; and some of her wondered whether she ever would be quite the same person as she had been just those couple of weeks ago.

The cloud was clearing.  A friendly finger of sun pried through the grey outside and the raindrops on the garden woke like sudden jewels.

There were no certainties in life.  But like the sunshine, there was always hope.

She _would_ see Malcolm again.  And as she’d told him, she ruled nothing in and ruled nothing out.  So maybe next time....

 

**The End.**

**Author's Note:**

> If you've enjoyed this, please leave a review!


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